Down the Badger Hole
by MadClaireMaelstrom
Summary: Harry thought he was used to how weird his school life was. Yeah right. A strange friendship started, a stranger skin condition, on top of the Triwizard high jinks... that all add up to a budding romance! Hedwig, I don't think we're in Hogwarts anymore. HP/CD slight slash as of now. Eventual creature!fic. Title/summary subject to change, maybe. T for language and m/m slash


Chapter One:

Just A Bad Dream

It was right after finals. Like usual, Harry was relaxing by the lake, the air warm on his face and his tie loosened now that the stress of tests was past. He even thought he'd done pretty well on most of them. He was feeling pretty good. But he wasn't alone. Next to him was an upperclassman, laying quite close. The breeze picked up for a second and tousled his soft brown hair, leaving it laying as perfect as it had been before.

"It's so strange to think that next year is my very last one here." The older boy turned to lean on his elbow, awfully close to Harry's face. Harry felt his palms go wet with nerves. This was weird. Shouldn't Ron and Hermione be here? Even Ginny… The boy reached out and gently took Harry's chin. Harry felt like he was about to throw up with nerves. Shouldn't he be running? Why wasn't he leaving by now, go someplace normal? He couldn't look away from the boy's eyes, even. He noticed they were a nice shade of grey- Wait, no, he didn't notice other guy's _eyes_. What was going on? His train of thought was completely derailed when the boy leaned in close to his face, his breath against Harry's ear. "I'm going to miss you this summer." Harry's mind died. What…? The next thing he knew there was a pair of firm lips gently moving against his own, which was the final straw.

His arms flailed around his, looking to hit anything and everything within reach, and then some. It was dark and hot, his arms were restricted, and he could hardly breath-

"Bloody _fuckin_ hell, Harry, are you trying to kill me...?" What turned out to be sheets were torn off him, and a dim light allowed him to see Ron standing over him, bleary-eyed but glaring. He was at the Burrow. Then, that was all just a dream? His heart started to slow as he calmed down a bit. Ron threw the sheets back at him, harder than Harry thought necessary.

"Sorry, Ron, I just," Harry felt his face get hot; he was glad the light in Ron's room was so low, "h-had a… bad dream…"

"Oh…" Ron's face lost any last traces of rage at losing sleep. "It wasn't about You-Know-Who, was it? Does your scar hurt?"

"No, nothing like that. I'm fine, Ron, let's just go back to sleep. It was stupid now that I think about it…" Harry pulled his sheets back over him and lay back down, conversation over. He didn't want to dwell on that dream…

Ron grunted and threw himself back into his mess of quilts and mismatched pillows. "A'right Harry. Night." Harry sighed, thinking he wouldn't be able to sleep again tonight after _that_. Ron's voice piped up from the other side of the room. "Hey, Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"Was that Cedric bloke in your dream or somethin'? You woke me up sayin' his name, mate."

Harry felt his heart skip. "W-was I?" Ron grunted an affirmative into his pillow. "It… was about Quiddich. That match last year, yeah?" No response. Harry looked over; he'd already dropped off. Cedric, huh? At least at school he could forget about him except for matches, and then he really didn't have to interact with him, right? Wait, was he really planning to avoid someone because of a dream no one else knew? That was like admitting his dream meant something, which it _didn't_ , he told himself firmly. Trelawney be damned, it was just a bad dream probably brought on over worry over what happened at the World Cup is all. Right?

Right?

* * *

AN: Well. Hi there. I still live, huh? Been trying to get back in the writing groove. It is very difficult. It's actually like 2 am here and I just typed all this out... started at like midnight, when I know I should be sleeping...

I was TRYING to start an original work but somehow I ended up dipping my toes in slash. Go figure. But, we'll see where this goes. I'm at the point of tired where you just come up with these big grandiose plans of a trilogy work with slash and a creature!fic tag...

I'm so sorry this isn't the Hollow Boy, I've lost so much steam where that's concerned, I just can't get anything worth it written. Still plugging away at it though, so it's not technically dead...

Arrivederci, folks.


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